Oh, Mandy
by everybetty
Summary: Mandy is very grateful to Ultronics Inc, makers of AccuTrans Casting Silicone. Bloodletting, salty language, tequila imbibing, and a li'l bit o' Nick smut.


"Webster!"

"Stokes!" Hey, he started it.

"That a new lab coat?"

I look down at the years old, so drab it could hardly be called blue, formless jacket I wear. It has a coffee stain down one sleeve- hey, I drink it black so it's not like there was milk or sugar in it to go bad- and currently carries a patina of fingerprint dust down the front. Kinda the point really, to catch the crap before it can besmirch my oh, so expensive FOL v-neck tee. It's in hunter green which I've been told is a good color on me, and I'm actually wearing lipstick today I realize with a little goose of glee.

"Whatdya want, dude?" I ask, perking an eyebrow in flirtatious perturbation.

He raises hands in surrender and grins. He likes me tough - one of the guys. I know that, have known it for some time. But sometimes … just sometimes, mind you, I like it when he calls me Mandy. And it would be loverly to call him Nicky. I mean, come ON. Nick is a good strong masculine name. Nick. Grr. One syllable- all man. But Nicky… only Catherine really calls him Nicky anymore and I find myself half jealous, half pissed off that this woman practically old enough to be his…. really older sister or aunt at least, gets to call him such an affectionate name. Although sometimes when she says it, it's with such maternal warmth I can't really blame her. Shit. Now he's staring at me.

"Oookay," I relent, cuz, yeah, like I wasn't gonna? "No, the coat's the same. And I still wanna know what you want."

He pouts out his lip a little, and I stare at it then force my eyes upwards to meet his eyes. Not just puppy dog. More like wrinkly basset hound puppy eyes. Shimmery pools of the deepest chocolate brown and they are currently fixed on me. I adjust my glasses and mash my lips together, smooshing them back and forth to make sure whatever color is left over from my earlier application is spread in even coverage over my lab-chapped lips. It's always so damn dry in here. And it really doesn't help that I chew on them when working. Yeah. Men always enjoy a good scab covered, flaky lip.

"You take that AccuTrans course?"

"Yeah." Not that I could really call it a course, of course, since it was more like a four hour long advertisement. A seminar put on by the folks at Ultronics, Inc. Good people, if a little high on the geek scale. I enjoy a good silicone cast as much as the next person…yeah, probably more than the average next person, but four hours of listening to a man with brown sweat stains in the pits of his white short-sleeved oxford was a bit… excessive. But he had a real passion for it. A _fervor_ that bordered on evangelical. Not that Mandy Webster, daughter of Ruth Silverberg really had much background in that. Temple on the rare occasions of High Holidays and Bubby's visits was pretty tame. Lotsa mumbled Hebrew, not so much singing. But this guy had the vision, and he was bound and determined to convert all of us lab geeks to The Way. The new frontier in print lifting.

"How'd you like to try out your new learnin' in the field?"

I blink. Gape. Gawk. Stand like a drooling cretin for what feels like forever but is probably about a second or two. Maybe three. I aim for casual and hit the target around caught off guard. "S-sure." More like shshure- a gentle slur I tell myself. Wait. This is Nick Stokes, one half of the they like to think they're the comedy team of Stokes 'n' Brown. Or Brown 'n' Stokes. That argument gets a lot of mileage in the breakroom on slow days.

"Oh, ha ha, Nick. You got me. Go bother Greg or Hodges would you? I have work to do." Actually, I have an eBay bid I wanna check in on. It's a Dali print from his Don Quixote collection that I've been coveting and might be able to afford with my birthday money from Bubby. If DaliLuvr778 would just stop fucking bidding a fucking dollar higher than me every ten fucking minutes. Ahem. But Nick doesn't need to know this particular detail.

The 'I surrender' hands are back again as are the scolded puppy eyes.

"I'm serious, Mand. I have a big multiple homicide out at the Sagebrush Ranch. I need print lifts off of some leather riding equipment and the house is made of rough wood. From the little I've heard of the stuff, it sounds like your AccuTrans will do the trick. And you're the only one with the training. And, uh, free samples of it. Ecklie's still too frickin' tight to pony up for it."

Well… when you put it that way.

Which is why I'm sitting in the passenger seat of The Denali. Yes, capital The. The hulking black gas guzzler, light bar and radio. Packed with every conceivable state of the art piece of investigative equipment. Driven by Nick Stokes, Level Three CSI, mesh vest, tight black t-shirt showing off baseball hard biceps, and packing a pretty damn scary up close looking gun on his hip. Nick Stokes, recent object of my affections and yeah, infatuation. And me. I at least thought to doff my stupid lab coat and Nick kindly offered me his black leather jacket. It hangs on me but I still feel cool. Like a freshman wearing her senior boyfriend's varsity jacket. And it smells…so good. Guh.

He doesn't put the radio on, which I kinda appreciate because if there was ever a fantasy killer it was finding out the guy you liked had shitty taste in music. I've heard him singing to himself often enough, and damn if that boy don't have a surprisingly nice voice, even if it's only because I'm pretty much invisible most of the time in the lab that I'd heard it (although it makes for some interesting observations of people when they assume they're alone) and when he does sing it's generally something pretty cool like Snow Patrol or Radiohead. I'll give him the country stuff cuz he's from Texas and I don't think he can help it-it's probably a biological imperative like salmon spawning or sea turtle egg laying. In the genes. And in his jeans. But if that radio had come on and he'd started singing along to Britney Spears or rapping about bitches and ho's … well that woulda just killed me.

So, no radio. Just his hands white-knuckled around the steering wheel in concentration and fighting traffic on the I-15. His straight through the windshield, nine mile stare is kinda freaking me out. And then it hits me. Multiple homicide. Sounds innocuous enough. But it meant multiple victims. Multiple dead bodies. And the only dead people I'd seen were ancient relatives in powdered and lacquered repose in polished wooden caskets.

"H-how…" I clear my throat and straighten in the leather seat. "How did they die?" I ask as if inquiring as to how the game went last night.

Nick spares a quick glance at me, appraising eyes taking in what I'm sure must be my telltale heart beating right out of the front of his leather jacket.

"Their throats were slit. Mostly," he amends after a seconds long pause. He drags the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip then squirms in his seat. He darts another glance my way and I steel myself. I'm unconcerned. Nonchalant. Unflappable. I even manage to nod shortly as if filing away this important fact and not swallowing back the tuna fish sandwich I had for breakfast. Hey. I like tuna fish.

"You don't hafta go near the bo--the victims, Mandy," he continues, eyes boring through me. "I'll just have you pull some of the prints and then show me how to use the Accu stuff. I'll do the dirty work with the decedents." His eyes return to the windshield and don't look back until we've pulled onto the long dirt road leading to the ranch.

The house is like something straight off the Ponderosa. Like Joe Cartwright is gonna come sauntering out, wearing his green denim jacket and tan chinos. And he has dark hair still. I never liked grey-haired Little Joe.

Nick has a leather satchel in his hand and he's already standing at the door. He turns around and his RayBans covered eyes fix in my general direction. Then he turns and enters the house.

I grab up my own bag which is my purse. Denim, long strap so I can wear it over my chest. Very broken in. Ink stain in one corner from where my Bic had broke. The AccuTrans stuff is basically a plastic caulk gun. I brought a backup canister of the acrylic goop just in case. He said _multiple_ homicide.

My hand steadies me at the doorway, fingers wrapping around the warm wood of the frame. I take a half step forward and Nick looms in front of me from somewhere in the house, bringing me up short. "Don't go that way," he says quietly. "We can start in the other room."

The living room is spacious. I mean truly massive. The ceiling stretches a good thirty feet above, half of it a glassed over skylight. The fireplace could fit a man laying down and is surrounded by Wonder bread loaf-sized grey stone cut into brick shapes. A dark wood mantel ten feet long hovers above it and holds pictures of an older man and woman and what are probably the next two generations. And every picture has a horse in it. Gramma and Grampa look surprisingly like Miss Ellie and Jock Ewing from Dallas.

I stand holding my purse, twining the long strap around my hand tight enough to leave white rings in the flesh. The house is so frickin' quiet. Nick is squatting down at the foot of the stone hearth. He has his print brushes out and is daubing black powder on the roughly cut rock. And that's when I notice the brownish stain. Dried blood.

Seconds later he sits back on his haunches and looks at me. "I found these prints, Mandy, but I can't lift 'em off the stone."

"I can," I reply in an equally serious voice. I can. I tried a lift off a brick during the course and clay is more porous than this stone. And I aced the brick. Roger from Ultronics had given me a small golf clap and a smile that showed badly coffee-stained teeth for my results.

I pull the gun from my purse in a single fluid motion like Anne Parillaud in _La Femme Nikita._ I fight the desire to split my legs and double grip the gun in the stance she uses. Instead I heft the gun, slam in a cartridge of acrylic and drop to my knees next to Nick.

The extruder works perfectly. A half inch thick blot of opaque plastic covers the print Nick has defined with the powder. I pull the gun free leaving a small tail of plastic, then set it aside and sit back.

"That's it?" he asks, not unimpressed but more like waiting for further instruction.

"It takes a little bit to dry. The next part's where the skill comes in," I say with a small smile. "Don't suppose you have a hair dryer?" I ask, smile broadening a smidge as I take in his closely shorn scalp.

Nick's answering smile makes tadpoles birth in my tummy. Then he leans over and begins to blow gently on the drying plastic. The tadpoles become an army of frogs. And yes, they are called an army- when I was a kid I learned the group names of about a hundred different animals. Oh, I was _so _destined to end up working in a lab.

"You, uh, have any other prints you want me to goop up?" I ask, not really wanting to interrupt what he was doing since it was quite enjoyable to watch.

He sits back and looks sadly at me. "Yeah. But I'll go get them. You keep at this." He rises silently and turns to leave. I hear his footsteps creak on the hardwood floorboards then stop. I know he is heading to the "other" room - the one with the reason we're here. But I don't know why he's stopped.

I turn, lips still pursed from blowing on the drying acrylic and see the reason why Nick has stopped. My whole world stops with him.

A man stands in the living room, a very large revolver in his hand. Pointed at us.

He's tall, swarthy. Black cowboy hat. A scar runs down the man's face from his left eyebrow down to join where the corner of his mouth droops, barely holding on to a thin, unlit cheroot.

His build is thin. Rangy, I think they call it. Slender as a polecat. Black leather vest over a black shirt, and black pants with, yup, black chaps over black boots ends the picture.

He never says a word. His eyes flick over to see Nick frozen mid-step, hand hovering over the weapon at his hip. Nick's fingers twitch once. Twice. Black Hat curls one side of his mouth in a 'give it your best shot' grin. The cheroot droops lower in counterpoint.

Nick drops his hand and backs up, but not straight. He manages to get himself between me still kneeling on the floor, holding my extruder gun, wishing like hell it shot something besides clear acrylic, and Black Hat.

"That's far enough, lawman." The words creak out of Black Hat's mouth. The cheroot bobs but that's the only movement the man has made.

Nick stands to full height and jerks his head once at me. "Let the lady go."

Black Hat ponders this, the thin brown cigarette shuddering as he works it with his mouth. "She yours?"

Before my 21st century mouth can shoot me in the foot Nick speaks up. "Yeah. She's mine. Let her go. Your quarrel ain't with her."

Black Hat nods so shortly it's practically imperceptible. "No. No, it ain't, lawman. But she shore is a purdy li'l filly."

"I -- I'm not a _horse_," I declare in my best post-feminist voice. The stutter kinda robs it of any strength but the point had to be made.

"You best control your ride there, lawman. Or I'll put a bit in that mouth o' hers."

"I like 'em wild," Nick says with a completely straight face. "More fun to break 'em."

Black Hat raises a hand to his mouth and pulls the cheroot free as he barks out a laugh. Then he spits on the floor, all trace of humor gone from his face. "Got that right, lawman," he says with a creepy leer at me. His cold, dark eyes flick to the acrylic gun in my hand and he tucks the cigarette into his chest pocket, drawing himself up taller and focusing his revolver on me.

"Best you put that gun down there, filly."

"It-it's an Ultronics AccuTrans Extruder," I stammer out.

"Don't rightly care what kinda iron you're packin', bitch. Throw it down, towards me."

"Do as he says, sweetheart," Nick drawls, never turning towards me, eyes fixated on the Man with the gun.

I bristle. I mean, I've always been pretty damn independent. Too independent if you ask my parents. And my school teachers. And the boss at my last job. And this whole filly, bitch, sweetheart thing is just rankling. I'm about to open my mouth when I notice that Nick's hand is balled up in such a tight fist his knuckles have whitened. And I get it. I so get it. It's like he's silently begging me to follow him. To mind my mouth and let him take the reins. And considering all I'm fixing to part with is a caulk gun that oozes clear acrylic goop I figure I should learn to choose my battles. There you go, Mr. Fitch. Hope you're imparting your same wisdom on the next set of lab hires in San Fran. Figures you wound up being right. Always did have a soft spot for you and your ugly Mickey Mouse neckties.

So instead I toss the extruder forward and it lands lightly on the hardwood, skittering a few more feet to come to rest between Nick and Black Hat.

"You got her broke real good there, lawman. It's a pity. She had any life left in her I'd have taken a turn."

I see Nick's spine go ramrod straight but Black Hat's eyes are fixed on me. Steely with unmistakable intent. Like a rattlesnake eyeing up a baby bunny. I can't meet his gaze for long. A frisson of terror passes down my spine and my limbs go cold and heavy. I drop my eyes and stare at the whorls of warm, dark brown in the grain of the wood floor, trying to lose myself in the circuitous path.

"What do you want?" Nick asks quietly.

But I know what Black Hat wants.

"What I want, lawman, is somethin' you can't give me. See the owner of this here ranch owed me a pretty penny. I came collectin' but he held out on me. I'da been halfway to the border if you hadn't a shown up when you did. But show up you did." His eyes swivel over to fix on Nick again.

Nick's hand has dipped back down closer to his hip and Black Hat pulls the hammer back on his revolver. The click-click-CLACK it makes echoes in the huge room, off the white plaster walls, off the glass of the ceiling. "Best you move that hand, son."

"You're just gonna kill us," Nick says in a deadly flat voice. "Can't tell me to go without a fight. Not while I have a breath left in my body and a gun at my side."

Black Hat squints as if Nick is the sun in his eyes.

Nick's hand drops and grabs the grip of his Glock, thumb undoing the snap with a practiced motion.

"Alright, lawman. Go ahead. Make your move."

I make a sound. A squeal, a squeak. My heart is in my throat choking off any words, allowing only a frightened puff of air to escape.

Black Hat's eyes dart my way for a split second.

Nick pulls his gun free and at the same time takes a single stride TOWARDS the gunman, his booted foot kicking out and sending the Ultronics AccuTrans Extruder gun skating towards Black Hat. Like a crow, Black Hat's dark beady eyes follow the shiny as it skitters towards him and Nick pulls the trigger once, twice. The sharp reports are deafening in the open room.

Black Hat's shirt blossoms with a darker wet stain across his chest and he staggers backwards. A tiny crimson puddle begins to form on the gorgeous dark wood at his feet.

The revolver goes off with an ear shredding, head splitting explosion and the air is filled with the reek of gunpowder. Nick wheels about on his heel, runs at me, grabs my hand and almost pulls my arm from its socket as I'm still rooted to the floor.

He heads for the door, pushing me in front of him, and my ears are still packed with cotton from the gun blasts but I can hear Nick's harsh ragged breaths as he propels me forward.

We hit the sunshine and Nick keeps forcing me onward. His hands are weights on my shoulders and seem to be getting heavier.

A huge black stallion is tied up outside and Nick grabs the rope, flipping it over the railing and loosening the tether. The horse twitches his head and pins him with a huge brown eye but Nick just pats the horse's neck and takes the reins in his hand.

He mounts in a single fluid motion, foot in the stirrup launching him up into the saddle. He shoots a hand out to me and I grab it. He pulls me up behind him and digs his heels into the sides of the massive beast.

"Har! Har!" He makes a clck-clck noise with his tongue and cheek and the horse takes off.

I'm almost unseated by the sudden acceleration but Nick has one of my hands pulled tightly around his waist in a solid grip. I slip my other hand around his waist and burrow my head into his back.

His black t-shirt is damp and smells of sweat and fabric softener. I can feel his muscles, taut and rippling under the soft cotton fabric.

The wind rushes by us and our bodies are one on the horse as the magnificent steed's heels stir up a trail of dusty clouds. The muscles in the stallion's broad back between my legs stretch and bunch into hard knots as it gallops, and Nick's back echoes the movement. He holds himself ramrod straight in the saddle but his ride is so easy, the reins wrapped around a hand that reaches behind him and strikes the horse's rump with the leather strap. The whipping drives the horse on harder and its flanks bellow in and out with the effort. I can hear the beast chuffing, feel the heat building under and between my legs.

The desert is a blur, flashes of dull green against a vista of yellow. Sand stings my face and I squint my eyes down tightly, tucking my nose deeper into Nick's t-shirt.

Then I feel the horse beginning to slow and Nick's back loses some of its steel. He slumps a little and his back rounds, pulling away from me slightly. The horse snorts out a hot breath as it continues to ease its gait. The gallop turns into a canter and the previously smooth ride becomes a bumpy carousel, with me grabbing on for dear life. Nick doesn't seem to notice the awkwardness of the gait, his seat still easy, his legs clamped firmly around the horse's flanks.

As the canter turns into a lazy trot I finally unbury my face from his t-shirt and look around. We are in front of my house.

Nick dismounts with as much grace as he had when getting on and lifts his arms to me. His face is pale, his eyes tight. He hasn't spoken a word since our flight from the ranch.

I wrap my hand around one forearm and his other reaches up to embrace my waist. I brace myself with his strength and drop from the towering height of the stallion's back. I feel Nick's support waver and I drop awkwardly. When I pull my hand away it's covered in blood.

"Nick, you're bleeding," I say dopily and dopedly. The words come out slow, slurred. He must know. But he stands as if untouched. I finally tear my eyes from my crimson stained hand and gaze up at him. A shiny wet blotch darkens the black t-shirt at his bicep and blood has sheeted its way down from under his sleeve, coating his elbow and forearm in sticky scarlet.

"It's just a flesh wound," he says. "Are you okay?" His eyes scan me head to toe. I must look a mess; hair a fright wig from the wild ride here, the clip holding my ponytail/bun thing lost somewhere in the sands. Sweat chilling the opening of my v-neck tee and dampening my pits under the jacket. But he seems happy with my appearance.

"You look okay? Are you?" he repeats and I realize I haven't answered him.

"I - I'm fine, Nick. But …" and I wave a shaky hand at his bloodied arm.

"It's all right, Mandy," he says, reaching out to briefly squeeze my wrist.

"We should… we should call someone."

Nick shakes his head. "Marshall'll be on his trail already. Posse'll probably have him in the hoosegow by sundown. Let's just get you inside."

I nod dumbly, then follow behind him as he makes his way up my front walk.

As I fumble for my keys in my giant purse the all-consuming thought in my head is, why do I hafta be such a slob? Nick's going to walk in my house and he's gonna take one look at my slovenly mess and turn right around and leave. He'll tell everyone at the lab about the dishes piled in the sink and the weeks worth of unread newspapers on my coffee table, propping up all my coffee cups and I think I left a basket of dirty laundry at the foot of the stairs and all I have in my fridge is three day old chicken korma and some rock hard jasmine rice and a few cans of off label soda and oh, shit. I think I'm outa toilet paper. I have a vague memory of a panicky grab for the Kleenex from the back of the toilet this morning and it's all too late because my key is in the door and he's entering behind me.

He stands uneasily in my front hall and at first I figure it's because it's his first visit to my home and he can already see the mess starting in the foyer. Multiple pairs of shoes aren't so much lined up as kicked out of and off to the side. My current Mary Janes join their sisters in the huddle by the coat rack which currently holds not coats so much as my favorite flannel bathrobe I slip into before going out for the paper, and a broken umbrella.

Then he starts to sway a little and I realize that he's probably not feeling all that great, what with a year's worth of Red Cross donations rushing out of his arm.

Without thinking I slip an arm around his waist and he lets me and I guide him over to the couch, grandly sweeping aside the Vegas Sun and an issue of Entertainment Weekly opened up to an article about Grey's Anatomy. I had blackened out the actresses' teeth and put devil's horns and a pornstache on McDreamy. I was feeling bored and spiteful, what can I say?

"You, uh… just.." I push my hands in the air in his direction. "Just don't move. I'll just…" And I'm not sure what _I'll just _do but I turn on my heels and run to the bathroom. I whip open the medicine cabinet doors and start pawing through all the stuff I've collected. Hair gels never used, acne creams that barely worked. Motrin, grab the bottle, cuz ibuprofen works for gunshot wounds, I'm sure. Probably says so on the bottle in teeny print. I have no real first aid stuff it dawns on me. So I grab the box of decorative tissues from the toilet tank (hey, I have no toilet paper) and a bottle of hydrogen peroxide. Then I remember I left the Band-Aids in the kitchen from a recent cheese-related mishap.

I make a side trip to the kitchen, swiping up the box of bandages and head over to where Nick still sits bleeding on my couch. I mean, Nick's bleeding, and he's _on _my couch, but he hasn't bled ON my couch. Yet.

I push the sleeve of his tee up with one hand and start fumbling at the stuff with the other.

"Mandy, I told you. Don't worry about it. It's--"

"Yeah, just a flesh wound. A wound to your flesh, Nick. You're still bleeding like a stuck pig."

I struggle some more, trying to hold the fabric away from the deep bloody crease in his bicep. I finally drop it in frustration and can't believe the words that leave my mouth next. Not like I haven't pictured saying them a million times in the past, under decidedly different circumstances. But still…

"You need to take your shirt off, Nick."

I figure he's gonna laugh or roll his eyes, but he's still so damn quiet and he just shakes his head shortly. "It's--"

"Yeah, we've been over this, Stokes," I mutter, trying to shake him out of his stupor. "I don't have whiskey and a bullet to bite on, just some Kleenex and some Harry Potter Band-Aids."

It works. A little. He chuffs out a small laugh but still doesn't move to take the shirt off.

"Maybe you don't care about bleeding to death, Nick, but I care about my couch. Blood's a bitch to get out of fabric."

I try once more, pushing up the sleeve. "Look- it's not working out- it's gotta come off."

He nods once in agreement and peels the shirt off with a hiss.

I clear my throat and try to maintain cool professionalism but my eyes are drinking in what I'd always imagined under the fabric. Only Wendy had been lucky enough to see it before and she _still_ talked about it, cursed herself for not having a camera handy. She hadn't done it justice. His pecs, shoulders…the outlines of his abs. He is a Greek god, sitting on my couch. And still bleeding.

His skin is so warm under my hands as I take a hold of him, wrapping my fingers around his rock hard, muscled bicep. I dab at the wound with the peroxide, watching the blood bubble and fizz, and watching Nick chewing manfully on his bottom lip. It had to hurt. I know it had to hurt. My cheese knife inflicted cut had burned and then throbbed for hours afterwards. I can feel the tension in his arm and see the ropy veins standing out against the smooth, tanned flesh of his forearm.

"You know…I may not have whiskey, but I've got tequila… you want something to take the edge off?"

His teeth release his lip and he eyes me with what seems to be a new appreciation.

"Never took you for a tequila girl, Webster."

"Lotsa things you don't know about me, Stokes," I answer with what I hope is a flirtatious leer. I'm kinda outa practice with the whole lash batting, lip pursing bit. Not much use for it in a print lab.

"Let's see what you got," he says, and oh my god, he's GOT the look down.

I whisk off to my kitchen, grabbing the bottle of Partida I've been nursing for a month or so. $70 a bottle on my salary means budgeting, big time. I grab up two apparently clean glasses (god, I hope they are) and head back to find Nick watching me as I enter the room.

I drop to my knees once more (his presence kinda demands it) and pull the cork from the top, offering him the bottle and a glass. He ignores the glass and takes the heavy bottle in his left hand, tipping it back and draining a sizable gulp.

He doesn't even flinch, just kinda smacks his lips a bit in appreciation.

"You got taste, Mandy."

"You only live once, right?" I ask, reaching for the Kleenex and the peroxide once more.

At a single nod from him I saturate the wound once more and he says nothing, just tosses the bottle back once more. I pat the wound dry as lightly as I can with the tissue, but I can feel his muscles tightening with pain.

"That's as good as it gets," I say, dropping the blood and peroxide soaked tissues onto the coffee table. "You want the ibuprofen now?"

"Yeah, thanks," he says with a sigh. I knock four pills into his outstretched hand and he dumps them in his mouth, washing them down with another swig of my $70 tequila. But it'll be so worth the scrimping to replace it.

A little of the amber liquid dribbles down his soft bottom lip and without thinking I reach out and wipe it away with the pad of my thumb before it drops.

It dawns on me what I've just done a split second later and I pull my hand away but he catches it in his. Holds it there. I raise my eyes to his and before I can read the emotion brewing in those limpid brown pools he's pulling me forward, leaning into me, and our lips meet, they mash, they slid over each other.

The tequila tingles on my tongue, or maybe that's just Nick.

His strong hands caress my cheeks, his fingers knitting into my hair and he pulls me in closer.

He smells of blood and dust and tequila and gunpowder. It's a heady brew and it fills my nose as I inhale deeply, my mouth still otherwise engaged.

His lips leave mine to leave a trail of kisses up my jaw and over my eyes and I can feel myself melting in his embrace.

"Oh, Nick…Nick…" I murmur, my hands wrapping around his neck, tracing the sinews, massaging his strong shoulders.

"Mandy," he whispers back, moving his mouth to my ear. I can feel his warm breath. "Mandy …"

"Oh, Nick …"

"Mandy… MANDY!"

I sit bolt upright in my chair, gasping in surprise. Nick is bent over my work table, staring at me with a look of amusement and… something else.

"Nick! I, uh… I…"

"You fell asleep, Webster. Pulling another double?" He asks it with a little concern that makes my heart tweak and my belly flip.

"God, yeah, oh my…" I glance at my Timex. Shit! "Shit!"

He leans in closer and reaches a hand towards me and begin to fall into him but what's taken his notice is a brochure open on the table in front of me. I think it has a little drool on it.

"You take that course from AccuTrans?"

"Oh. Yeah. Was…um…enlightening," I reply dumbly.

"Oh yeah? Maybe you could show me some time how to use it?"

He reaches over to pick up the brochure and I slap my hand back on top of it, pinning it to the table.

"Sure, dude. Anytime," I say with a big grin, but I'm not letting go of the brochure.

He cocks his head and stares at me for an eternity, then smiles. He drops off a plastic baggie with a document in it.

"Think you could find time to run that for me?"

"Sure. Sure, of course," and I maintain the grin.

"Okay." He's still unsure, I can tell, then he shrugs those shoulders that mere minutes ago I was kneading and caressing and widens his grin.

"I'll be back for those in a little bit," he says, shooting a finger at me.

"No problem, dude. Just give me like half an hour."

"Half an hour. I'll be back, Mandy."

I nod and hold my breath until I follow the view of his butt out the door.

I lift the brochure and pick up the paperback book open on its face underneath. I've cracked the binding by sleeping on it, the pages now permanently stuck on one of the steamiest sex scenes I've ever come across. I turn the book to look at the cover.

The cover is a muscular, dark haired cowboy holding a woman around the waist with one arm. His other hand holds a pistol. And the title is _Hot Texan Nights. _

Wendy had grinned like a fool when she gave it to me. Told me she figured I'd enjoy it but just made a face when I asked why. And rather cryptically, she'd said it gave her the most awesome dreams.


End file.
